Kurt Busch on pole at the Glen

The Penske Racing South driver, who had also topped morning practice, was quick to praise his team after securing the position. It was Busch's second road course pole of the year.

"It feels great to do it at both road courses," he said. "I just remember some of the guys teaching about road courses and braking zones and shifting points, mainly my crew chief Roy McCauley.

"I think he won two road course poles this year. His background is open wheel racing and crew chiefing Champ Cars, and he helped out a bunch, just calming my nerves and helping me do the right things on road courses."

Although pole on a road course is likely to be more significant for race day prospects than on NASCAR's traditional wide ovals, Busch was aware that he has a lot of work to do if he wants to translate the pole into race victory.

"There's no camouflaging the fact that we were faster in practice than we are on the pole," he said. "We really have to focus hard on what our car's going to do on a long run.

"We've got to go out there in practice tomorrow and wear out some tyres and keep the thing on track and really gain the right information."

Behind Busch and Kahne, the second Penske entry of Ryan Newman shares row two with regular road course winner Jeff Gordon.

Jimmie Johnson starts fifth ahead of Robby Gordon, another man whose background is steeped in road racing.

None of the 'road course ringers' infiltrated the front of the grid, with Scott Pruett the best of the guests in 13th. Europeans Marc Goossens and Max Papis were 27th and 39th fastest, with the latter bumped out of the field under NASCAR's priority system.

Greg Biffle was the only casualty of qualifying, crashing at the second part of the Esses and putting himself at the tail of the field.

Starting order:

Pos  Driver              Make         Speed
 1.  Kurt Busch          Dodge      122.966
 2.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge      121.845
 3.  Ryan Newman         Dodge      121.642
 4.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet  121.432
 5.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet  121.172
 6.  Robby Gordon        Chevrolet  121.144
 7.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet  120.779
 8.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet  120.614
 9.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet  120.609
10.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet  120.497
11.  Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Chevrolet  120.290
12.  Elliott Sadler      Ford       120.277
13.  Scott Pruett        Dodge      120.229
14.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet  120.105
15.  Boris Said          Ford       120.080
16.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet  120.059
17.  Casey Mears         Dodge      120 000
18.  Ron Fellows         Chevrolet  119.865
19.  Brian Vickers       Chevrolet  119.777
20.  Mark Martin         Ford       119.650
21.  Carl Edwards        Ford       119.530
22.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet  119.422
23.  Ken Schrader        Ford       119.383
24.  Jamie McMurray      Ford       119.312
25.  Dave Blaney         Dodge      119.291
26.  J.J. Yeley          Chevrolet  119.276
27.  Marc Goossens       Ford       119.204
28.  Scott Wimmer        Chevrolet  119.189
29.  Terry Labonte       Chevrolet  119.083
30.  Matt Kenseth        Ford       119.072
31.  Bill Elliott        Dodge      119.033
32.  Scott Riggs         Dodge      118.974
33.  Michael Waltrip     Dodge      118.903
34.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet  118.823
35.  Martin Truex Jr.    Chevrolet  118.595
36.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge      118.595
37.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet  118.502
38.  Kyle Petty          Dodge      118.367
39.  Dale Jarrett        Ford       118.202
40.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge      117.093
41.  Greg Biffle         Ford        86.583
42.  Sterling Marlin     Chevrolet  -
43.  Brian Simo          Chevrolet  118.786

Did not qualify:

     Chris Cook          Dodge      118.601
     Max Papis           Chevrolet  118.548
     Tom Hubert          Ford       118.174
     David Murry         Dodge      117.403
     Dale Quarterley     Dodge      116.793
     Johnny Miller       Chevrolet  116.625
     Brandon Ash         Dodge      116.215